Hin Miasss tCoommruniicoationgraphy Name Volume 5 (2019). Number 5 Historiography in Mass Communication Editor Wm. David Sloan Editorial Board David Copeland Erin Coyle Leonard Ray Teel Elon University Louisiana State University Georgia State University Bruce Evensen Thomas A. Mascaro Bernell Tripp DePaul University Bowling Green State University University of Florida John Ferré Michael D. Murray Debra van Tuyll University of Louisville University of Missouri-St. Louis Augusta University Therese L. Lueck Erika Pribanic-Smith Yong Volz University of Akron University of Texas at Arlington University of Missouri Editorial Purpose This journal publishes essays dealing with the study of mass communication history and of history in general. (It does not publish articles about historical events, episodes, people, etc., as one finds in, for example, historical research papers.) Copyright The contents of this website, including the contents of the digital journal Historiography in Mass Communication , are copyrighted. Essays This journal invites historians to submit essays. They may be original ones written specifically for this journal, or they may be from material that the authors already have (such as classroom lectures, AJHA presidential addresses, etc.). Essay length may vary from 500 to 5,000 words. To submit an essay for consideration, email a Word file to the editor at [email protected] We place importance on the credentials of authors and normally expect an author to have published at least one history book. As you consider submitting an essay, please note that Historiography does not go through multiple “revise- and-resubmit” stages. In essence, we expect authors to have an expertise and to “get it right” from the beginning. If you have an essay accepted for publication, you will be required to af - firm that you are the owner of it and that it violates no law. Your essay will include a copyright notice that you are its owner. However, you must agree that your essay may be used in accord with the following poli - cy: The essay may be used for personal research purposes and for classroom teaching material. Multiple copies may be made for classroom teaching. However, no one (other than yourself) may sell the essay or include it in any collection that is sold. Hiisn Mtoassr Cioommgurniacatpionhy Volume 5 (2019). Number 5 Contents From the Editor: “Easy Explanations” page 1 Roundtable: “Journalism Historians and Identity: The Professional Is Personal” page 11 Therese Lueck, Maurine Beasley, Meta Carstarphen, Bruce Evensen, and Julie Williams James Danky, “Exploding the Canon of Journalism History” page 27 Leonard Ray Teel, “Middle East Journalism & Civil Society Before the Arab Spring: An Historiography” page 35 Historian Interview: Mike Conway page 55 Book Award Interview: Richard R. John, Network Nation: Inventing American Telecommunications page 63 After you download the pdf of this issue, you can go directly to an article by clicking on its title. Terms of Use: The essays in Historiography in Mass Communication may be used for personal research purposes and for classroom teaching ma terial. Multiple copies may be made for classroom teaching. However, no essay may be sold or be part of any collection that is sold. Violations of copyright are subject to prosecution. GET A FREE EXAM COPY OF THE 2020 EDITION Communication and the Law is entering its 23nd year of publication, and it has been used at 131 schools. New schools have been adopting it with each new edition. We believe its popularity confirms that professors recognize its superior quality. A distinguishing feature of Communi ca - 978-1-885219-86-2 tion and the Law is that a new, updated edition is published each year . Thus, you can be as sured that your students will have the most timely in formation in one place, rather than in a textbook and a separately published supplement. Each year, the prices of other books continue to go up , but the suggested retail price of Com munication and the Law re - mains at only $52.95. That is lower than for any other text - book in the field — in fact, less than for used copies of other books. If you do not already have a copy of the 2020 edition, to request a free exam copy please email Vision Press at [email protected] Vision Press “Outstanding Textbooks at Affordable Prices” Historiography in Mass Communication Volume 5 (2019). Number 5 Easy Explanations By Wm. David Sloan © R ecall when you’ve done historical research. How many times have you begun thinking that explaining your subject would be easy? Then as you got deeper into the research, you became convinced that the subject was so complex that you Sloan would never be able to understand or explain it. But you kept working in the sources, and finally, after untold hours of research, you began to under - stand. Now contrast that with the number of times you’ve looked at the program for a history conference and were able to guess the papers’ conclusions based simply on their titles. Why could you guess the conclusions? Obviously, the wording of titles gave a hint. But the titles also revealed the authors’ perspectives. And if you knew a perspective, it was not hard to guess the verdict. In fact, some of the authors may have known their conclusions before starting their research. Such presuppositions present a danger to accurate explanation, David Sloan, a professor emeritus from the University of Alabama, is the author/editor of and they are widespread. Two of the prominent perspectives in JMC more than forty books and is a recipient of the American Journalism Historians As soci - ahtiiostno’sr Kyo abrre ACwualtrdu rfoarl lSifteutimdiee asc ahinedve mitesn ct oaunds ionf Ca uvlatruiertya lo af notdh eCr raiwtiacrdasl . Studies. © 2019. The author owns the copyright to this essay. 1 Sloan If you know a “historian” holds to one of those mindsets, you can guess his or her conclusion if you know nothing more than the subject. But since much has been written about both of them, let’s consider another perspective that doesn’t receive as much attention these days but that, nevertheless, provides the underlying mindset for a large percentage of works in JMC history. It’s the Progressive interpretation. Like Cultural Studies and Cul - tural and Critical Studies, it is fundamentally ideological. The Progressive interpretation emerged around 1900. For at least three decades it dominated the writing of American history, but it de - clined in the 1940s, when a Consensus interpretation began to replace it. In the 1960s a New Left school appeared on the scene and for a time challenged Consensus thinking. Since, though, interpretations rarely last more than a few generations, a Neo-Consensus interpretation re - placed the New Left in the 1980s, and it has remained strong ever since. Amidst those waves of change, Progressive history still has its fol - lowers. However, despite the efforts of its most zealous advocates, it has never regained the ground it once occupied. But there are pockets of activism. Notwithstanding the fact that most JMC historians don’t make a de - liberate effort to write from a particular perspective, the Progressive in terpretation has never vanished from our field. In fact, it has re - mained strong. The Progressive school grew, in part, out of a change that had taken place in the study of American history in the late 1800s. Professional historians began to replace the gentlemen Nationalist and Romantic his torians who wrote most histories in the 19th century. A similar change took place in the writing of JMC history. While working journalists continued to write historical works, many JMC his - torians in the early 1900s were educators from the emerging depart - ments of journalism at public unHiivsetorsriotigersa. pBheyc ainu Msea smso Csot mofm thuonsicea utinoin - 2 Easy Explanations versities opened their doors to everyone, the new professional histori - ans came from various levels of society. Influenced by the ideas of such Progressive historians as Frederick Jackson Turner, Charles Beard, Claude Bowers, and Vernon Parrington, reform-oriented JMC historians began to view the past as a struggle in which editors, publishers, and reporters were pitted on the side of free - dom, liberty, civil reform, democracy, and equality against the powerful forces of wealth, conservatism, and class. For Progressive historians, the fundamental key to understanding history was ideological conflict. The past consisted of a black-and- white, conservative-vs.-liberal, bad-guy/good-guy dichotomy. On one side were the forces of equality and reform, and on the other were the wealthy and the politically influential. The fulfillment of the American ideal re quired a struggle against those individuals and groups that at - tempted to control the media for their own use. Sympathetic with the goals of the Progressive reformers of the early 20th century, historians wrote in such a way as to show the media as tools for social change, progress, and democracy and as an influential force in helping assure a better future. They believed the primary pur - pose of the media should have been to champion the causes of the com - mon people and to crusade for social and economic changes — to fight on the side of the masses of the common, working people against the entrenched interests in American business and government. They saw the media as a means of exposing the vices of conservative forces, con - tributing to progres sive political ideas, and in fluencing the general pub - lic into accept ing ideas for political and social reform. They explained the past in cycles of democratic and journalistic ad vance, which oc - currEed itworh’es nn otthe e media improved in serving the masses in America. They praised journalists and episodes that had contributed to greater de mocracy, while criticizing those favoring an elitist society.